


A Semblance of Peace

by DoctorBane



Category: The Punisher - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Murder, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 02:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5272901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorBane/pseuds/DoctorBane





	A Semblance of Peace

I didn’t want an end to the war.  
I didn’t want an end to the slaughter.  
There is something... liberating about taking the life of another human. Something almost... serene.  
I shoot a Vietcong in the head. He drops to the floor, and continues to twitch for several seconds. I let the air escape from my lungs.  
I know what the others think of me. They all think I’m mad. They’re all terrified of me.   
They should be.  
The Vietcong continue to pour into the base. The storm continues. I start to run low on ammo, and they threaten to overwhelm me. I swing my rifle like a club, smashing them in the face.  
The voice won’t leave me be. It’s telling me that if I want to survive, I have to let it into me. I have to say yes. If I say yes, I get my unending war. It’s saying something about a price, but I don’t care, it can have anything, just so I don’t have to stop, just so I don’t have to go back to my perfect life with my perfect wife and my perfect kids. Having served in the battlefield, having felt the blood of other men on my face, having seen the death throes of men I’VE... SLAUGHTERED... I can’t go back to that civilian life. I can’t help my kids with their homework. I can’t be the doting nine-to-five job husband.  
It’s not... enough...  
And so I give in, I say yes to the voice, I say YES, I say TAKE WHATEVER YOU WANT, JUST DON’T LET THE SLAUGHTER END. And just as the lightning strikes, and an explosion of thunder roars through the sky, the fires of Hell light within me, and I know there’s no turning back now, I know I’m damned, and I don’t care. The fire burns within me, and I scream damnation, and I feel dead and yet never more alive. I feel a smile curling on my lips, and I go in for the kill just as the napalm falls.

It’s years later now, my family are long in their graves. They were the price for my war.   
Although I mourn for my family, if given the choice to save them in exchange for not having my war, I remain unsure on what I would choose.   
All I know, is that it is only now, firing machine gun ammo into a human wall, that I feel a semblance of peace.


End file.
